USPS commercial pricing: what replaced Commercial Base and Commercial Plus

Where each price is sold

• Retail: the Post Office counter. USPS's price page lists each domestic service "at the Post Office" and "for Commercial Pricing" (USPS prices).
• Commercial, through USPS: Click-N-Ship on USPS.com sells Ground Advantage, Priority Mail and Priority Mail Express labels; USPS: "All users automatically get discounted commercial pricing when you order with Click-N-Ship." (USPS).
• Commercial, through a label service: DMM 223.1.2 makes Priority Mail commercial prices available to Click-N-Ship customers, registered users of USPS-approved PC Postage products, permit imprint customers and IBI postage meter users (DMM 223.1.2). For Ground Advantage, DMM 283.1.2 lists PC Postage, IBI meters, permit imprint and USPS Returns (DMM 283.1.2). Label services and selling platforms can also set their own prices.
• Business Rate Card: "Business users: Sign up for non-published, discounted prices for Priority Mail, USPS Ground Advantage, and their return services." (USPS Click-N-Ship page). As USPS says, those prices aren't published, so this page can't show them.

What "Commercial Base" and "Commercial Plus" mean now

• Domestic: one Commercial price. Notice 123 effective Oct 4, 2026 heads its domestic Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, Ground Advantage and Media Mail price tables Retail or Commercial, with separate cubic tables for commercial Priority Mail and Ground Advantage (Notice 123). The split into Base and Plus is in the edition effective Oct 2, 2022 (archive PDF) and gone from the one effective Jan 22, 2023 (archive PDF).
• International: both names remain for Priority Mail Express International, Priority Mail International and First-Class Package International Service, each with a Commercial Base and a Commercial Plus table (Notice 123).
• If a tool still says "Commercial Base" on a domestic label, it is using the old name; compare its price with Notice 123's Commercial price for the same weight and zone, such as $26.39 for 10 lb of Ground Advantage to Zone 8.

Media Mail: the same price at the counter and online

Notice 123 prints a Media Mail Retail table and a Media Mail Commercial table, and their single-piece prices are the same at every weight from 1 to 70 lb: $4.39 for 1 lb, $7.34 for 5 lb, $11.02 for 10 lb and $55.23 for 70 lb (Notice 123, checked Oct 28, 2026). So an online Media Mail label costs what the counter charges. Media Mail rates

When and where you can mail a label you bought online

Can I mail a label after the date printed on it?

Not without a date correction, for a PC Postage or meter label. The Domestic Mail Manual's section on postage meters and PC Postage, the label systems USPS authorizes, says: "A date correction indicium is required for any mailpiece not deposited by the date of mailing in the indicium" (DMM 604.4.5.1). The deposit rule for metered mail reads the same way: a piece with a complete date "must be deposited or presented on that date", except that one entered after the day's last scheduled collection may carry the next collection's date (604.4.6.2).

Worked example: a 2 lb Ground Advantage label to Zone 5 costs $10.50 online (Notice 123). Printed for yesterday, it needs a date correction on the piece or on a USPS-approved label (604.4.5.1). If your label service can't print one, ask it for a refund within 30 days of printing (DMM 604.9.3.10) and buy a new label dated the day you mail: you pay $10.50 again, and the first $10.50 comes back once the refund is granted, less any processing fee the service charges, which the same section allows. Every refund deadline: refunds for unused labels. (DMM 604 read Oct 31, 2026.)

Can I print a label at home and mail it from another town?

It depends on the service. DMM 604.4.6.3 lets meter and PC Postage pieces of Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, retail First-Class Mail, retail Ground Advantage, retail Media Mail and Library Mail go in "at any Postal Service facility", as long as zone-priced postage covers the zone counted "from the ZIP Code of the office where the mailpiece is deposited". Commercial Ground Advantage, the price online labels pay, isn't on that list, so it falls under the rule for everything else: deposit it "at a postal facility within the ZIP Code shown in the indicia" (DMM 604.4.6.3).

Worked example: zones count from the ZIP Code, so the town matters. The same 2 lb Ground Advantage label bought online costs $10.50 to a buyer in Zone 5 and $12.55 to a buyer in Zone 7, $2.05 apart (Notice 123). Mailing while you travel? Buy a Ground Advantage label with the ZIP Code you'll mail from; a Priority Mail label may go in anywhere if its postage covers the zone from there. (DMM 604 read Oct 31, 2026.)

Questions